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<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 6199184" data-attributes="member: 6688858">James Wyatt coming across as arrogant and one true wayist, as usual.Re &quot;this isn't fantasy it's science&quot;...what about all of that scientific philology in LOTR? Would it be a more pure fantasy if Tolkien hadn't bothered developing such realistic fantasy languages? AFAICT they have no direct importance to the &quot;mythic resonance&quot; of the work--they're pretty much pure nerdery in JRRT's area of scientific interest. If we're going to hold up LOTR as the paragon of &quot;classic fantasy&quot; then I don't see why we should discount the work of another fantasy author/RPG designer/DM merely for substituting as the simulationist, supporting element a bit of nerdery in biology or geography or psychology or whatever else for JRRT's linguistics nerdery.Re the orc baby dilemma, I think the way to solve it is to simply never have the adventurers run into any orc babies. Only a small minority of players are going to have their sense of verisimilitude thrown off if they don't encounter any orc children in an orc lair. They should be told to forget about it and if they persist they should not be played with.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 6199184, member: 6688858"] James Wyatt coming across as arrogant and one true wayist, as usual. Re "this isn't fantasy it's science"...what about all of that scientific philology in LOTR? Would it be a more pure fantasy if Tolkien hadn't bothered developing such realistic fantasy languages? AFAICT they have no direct importance to the "mythic resonance" of the work--they're pretty much pure nerdery in JRRT's area of scientific interest. If we're going to hold up LOTR as the paragon of "classic fantasy" then I don't see why we should discount the work of another fantasy author/RPG designer/DM merely for substituting as the simulationist, supporting element a bit of nerdery in biology or geography or psychology or whatever else for JRRT's linguistics nerdery. Re the orc baby dilemma, I think the way to solve it is to simply never have the adventurers run into any orc babies. Only a small minority of players are going to have their sense of verisimilitude thrown off if they don't encounter any orc children in an orc lair. They should be told to forget about it and if they persist they should not be played with. [/QUOTE]

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